There were hundreds of people in the stands last night at Tony Gwynn Stadium wearing T-shirts with Strasburg 37 on their backs.

Most of the fans in the crowd of 2,032 – which included students who received the free shirts at a pregame tailgate – were still there by the end of San Diego's State's Mountain West Conference game against BYU.

Too bad the man wearing Strasburg on the back of his jersey wasn't still on the mound at the end.

SDSU's Stephen Strasburg pitched seven shutout innings against the Cougars, who rallied against the SDSU bullpen for a 4-2 victory over the Aztecs.

“That's baseball,” said Strasburg, who was in line for his fifth victory of the season before BYU scored three runs in the eighth inning and another in the ninth off reliever Andrew Leary. “Nine times out of 10 we're going to get the job done.”

Strasburg struck out 15 batters – his fifth double-digit strikeout game in five starts – allowed just two hits and walked two.

“He did a great job and put us in position to win,” said SDSU coach Tony Gwynn.

Added Gwynn: “Our bullpen's been good. We're a little banged up. We've got some guys who have been sore. We just didn't close the deal . . . More than that, we need to put some runs on the board. Two runs ain't enough in this conference.”

The Aztecs (13-8, 3-2 MWC) scored two runs in the fifth inning, the second one a gift when BYU center fielder Stetson Banks lost a two-out fly in the dusk sky.

It appeared two runs would be enough the way Strasburg was pitching against the Cougars (13-7, 4-1).

In the seventh, however, Strasburg slipped on a two-out pitch to BYU's Kasey Ko, causing some concern. He finished the inning after a quick discussion with an SDSU trainer and pitching coach Rusty Filter, but did not return for the eighth.

Strasburg threw more than 100 pitches in each of his four previous starts. On this night, 97 was enough.

“We were trying to make him throw a lot of pitches and get us into a position where if we could stay close, then it would give us a chance if we could get to the bullpen,” said BYU coach Vance Law. “And it's not like they have stiffs in the bullpen. They've got a very good bullpen.”